- Pheasant Hunting Season Approaches

Every year about this time, my mind drifts away from the labors at hand and wanders to less productive thoughts of rolling hills, still dogs, and the sudden crack of the gun. I've gotta confess, I just love Pheasant hunting. And as the temperature starts to cool each year, I find it harder and harder to put it out of my mind.

It's not hiding in the dark woods and waiting to bushwhack a passing deer or boar. I like that sort of thing too, but let's face facts - that type of hunting is really a solitary endeavor. Pheasant hunting is more social. It's a bit of the sporting life that you can only do in groups. Man is a social animal after all, and this is a group put to good use.

You need not be quiet... well, not really quiet. Between birds you laugh with your friends and make Dick Cheney jokes. You kid about when "lawyer season" opens and joke about calling one of your friend's wives just to ask what his blood type is. "Oh... no reason... everything is fine... he can't come to the phone right now... gotta run bye!" Pheasant hunting is less about personal accomplishment like some kinds of hunting, and more about fellowship.

You go into the field aided by man's first and very best ally, the hunting dog. Most Spaniels and Pointers are giddy at thought of doing their jobs and would rather work for their keep than get it for free. Generations of careful breeding mixed with sound training has turned the act of finding a bird into a euphoric experience for them. And once you get to know them that euphoria is easy to see and appreciate. They do all the really hard work.

But we kick in our part too. The dog's nose may find the bird but it's man and his ingenuity that plucks it from the sky and puts it on the table. Pheasant move surprisingly fast to the uninitiated, but when they break for the sky time seems to slow down for the hunter. It either takes seconds or hours to shoot the typical pheasant; I find my my memory plays it back both ways.

They have a camouflage that defies reason. When the dog brings back this bundle of bright colors and striped feathers you wonder how you could have possibly missed seeing it. I've seen a whole bird all but disappear behind just three or four blades of grass. Finding a bird can be like finding a $1,000 roll of bills in the cushions of your couch. You're nothing but pleased to have found it, but you can't for the life of you imagine how it got there without you already knowing about it.

My buddy Randy calls it 'manly fun'. It is that. Mercutio would have hunted Pheasant had he the means, and so would his brethren. (Verona would surely have imposed a truce for the sake of the dogs and the birds.) It's a rich man's sport made accessible to the common man by virtue of the American experience. We're all princes here - at least while we're in the field with the dogs. Or even if we aren't, for a few hours we can at least feel like one.

We'll be hunting Pheasant again this year in a slightly bigger group than normal. I already can't seem to take my mind off it. Owing to it's sudden nature, there are precious few good Pheasant hunting videos. But I think think the one above captures enough of it to get your mind wandering like mine has been.